Excellent question. This is a top-tier behavioral question that directly probes for self-awareness, humility, and a growth mindset—three non-negotiable traits for a Staff Engineer. A weak answer here can be a significant red flag.

Here’s the breakdown of how to ace this question.

The Core Goal of the Question

The interviewer wants to know if you are coachable, self-aware, and proactive about your own professional development. They are testing whether you can take constructive criticism, translate it into meaningful action, and ultimately become a more effective engineer and leader. They want to see evidence that you are not defensive and that you see feedback as a gift for improvement.

Principles to Use in Your Answer

  1. Choose the Right Piece of Feedback: This is the most critical step.
  • Do Not choose feedback that is trivial (“My code comments weren’t detailed enough”). This is too junior.
  • Do Not choose a “humblebrag” (“My manager said I work too hard” or “I’m a perfectionist”). This is transparent and signals a lack of genuine self-awareness.
  • Do Not choose feedback that paints you in a truly negative light (“My peer told me I was arrogant and nobody liked working with me”). While honest, it’s very difficult to recover from.
  • Do choose a piece of feedback that is substantial and relevant to a Staff Engineer’s role. It should be about scope, influence, communication, or strategic thinking.
  • Good examples: “You’re great at deep technical work, but you need to be better at communicating the strategic ‘why’ to leadership.” or “You successfully drive your team’s projects, but you could have more impact by proactively aligning with parallel teams to avoid duplicated effort.” or “You are a strong technical mentor, but you sometimes jump in to solve problems for junior engineers too quickly, which can hinder their growth.”

  1. Show You Received It Gracefully: Start your story by demonstrating maturity. State that you were grateful for the feedback and that you listened carefully to understand it. Mentioning that you asked clarifying questions to fully grasp the feedback is a huge plus.

  2. Take Ownership, Don’t Make Excuses: Never, ever be defensive or blame the person giving the feedback. Don’t say, “My manager didn’t understand the context…” Instead, say, “I reflected on it and realized they were right. My intention was X, but I could see how the impact was Y.” This shows immense maturity.

  3. Focus on the “Action” Part: The “what you did” is more important than the “what the feedback was.” Be specific and concrete. A Staff Engineer doesn’t just “try harder”; they create a new system or process for themselves to ensure improvement.

  4. Demonstrate Systemic Change, Not a One-Time Fix:

  • Weak Action: “So in the next meeting, I tried to speak up more.”
  • Strong Action: “I created a new personal habit. Before any major technical presentation, I now write a one-paragraph executive summary specifically for a non-technical audience. I also schedule a 15-minute prep session with a PM to ensure my messaging is clear and lands effectively.” This is a scalable, repeatable, and deliberate action.
  1. Close the Loop with Results: Show that your actions had a positive impact. Did your manager or peer notice the change? Did a subsequent project go more smoothly because of your new approach? Did you explicitly ask for feedback on your improvement?

Signals the Interviewer Looks For (Strong Hire)

The interviewer is looking for evidence that you will be a mature, high-leverage addition to the team.

✅ Positive Signals (Strong Hire)

  • Growth Mindset: You genuinely believe you can improve and actively seek out opportunities to do so. You see feedback as a tool for growth, not a personal attack.
  • High Self-Awareness: You have an accurate and honest understanding of your own strengths and development areas.
  • Humility: You can admit you’re not perfect and are open to learning from others, regardless of their level. This is critical for collaboration.
  • Proactivity and Ownership: You don’t wait to be told what to do. You hear feedback, internalize it, and create a concrete plan of action to address it. You own your professional development.
  • Impact-Oriented: Your actions lead to a clear, positive result for you, your team, and your projects. You can articulate this result.
  • Coachability: The interviewer will walk away thinking, “This person is someone I can work with and help grow. They will listen and adapt, making the whole team better.”

❌ Negative Signals (Red Flags to Avoid)

  • Defensiveness: Justifying your past behavior or questioning the validity of the feedback (“They just didn’t get it,” “That’s not really how it was”).
  • Arrogance / Lack of Self-Awareness: Claiming to have never received any significant constructive feedback. Everyone has areas for improvement.
  • Blaming the Messenger: Implying the person giving feedback had an agenda or was wrong.
  • Vagueness: Giving a generic answer without a specific story or concrete actions. “They said I should work on my communication, so I’ve been trying to do that.” This is weak.
  • Focusing on a “Fake Weakness”: The classic “I’m a perfectionist” or “I care too much.” Interviewers have heard this a thousand times.

How to Structure Your Answer: A Modified STAR Method

  • Feedback: State the feedback clearly and concisely. Name the source (e.g., “my manager,” “a trusted peer”).
  • Reflection/Acknowledgement: Briefly explain how you processed it.
  • Action: Detail the specific, systemic changes you made.
  • Result: Explain the positive outcome of your actions.

Example Answer Outline:

  • (Feedback): “In a performance review last year, my manager gave me some really valuable feedback. She said that while I was very effective at driving technical execution within my team, I was missing opportunities to influence outside my team’s boundaries. Specifically, she noted a time when another team built a logging library that partially overlapped with one we were planning.”

  • (Reflection/Acknowledgement): “I thought about that, and she was absolutely right. I had been so focused on my team’s roadmap that I wasn’t being proactive about communicating our plans to the wider engineering org. My approach was more reactive. I thanked her for the direct and actionable feedback.”

  • (Action): “To address this, I implemented a two-part system for myself. First, I started a bi-weekly, one-page ‘Tech Radar’ email that I sent to the leads of adjacent teams, outlining what we were working on, problems we were facing, and plans for the next month. It was low-effort for them to read but high-value for visibility. Second, I made a personal rule to never start a major design doc without first having a coffee chat with at least one senior engineer from a potentially impacted team. This wasn’t for a review, but just to ask, ‘Hey, we’re thinking about this, does it conflict with or complement anything on your radar?’”

  • (Result): “The impact was immediate. The ‘Tech Radar’ email directly led to another team adopting our new caching strategy, saving them a month of work. The coffee chats helped us identify a major integration point with the SRE team on a recent project before we had even written a line of code, which made the final rollout incredibly smooth. My manager even noted the improvement in my next review, and I feel my influence has expanded well beyond just my direct team.”